Something Thoughtful

   Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

 

“BASED ON A TRUE STORY”

I must be getting old. I find myself returning to themes on this “Something Thoughtful” section that I have explored before; but I’m sure you’ll forgive me, as I’m addressing something important.

Earlier this week, I found on Facebook a posting, of American origin, listing and criticising films which were supposedly “based on a true story” but which were in fact very far from presenting historical fact. The notorious boys-own rubbish film U-571 that has a U.S. submarine, in the Second World War, winning the war by capturing a German Enigma coding machine on the high seas; when in fact the only Enigma coding machine captured on the high seas in that war was captured by a Royal Navy ship two years before America was involved in the war. The much glamourised film about King George V1's stuttering problem The King’s Speech which, claims the film, was cured just in time for the king to make an heroic speech as the war broke out; when in fact George’s stutter was cured years earlier, even before he was king. Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her role in the football-coaching film The Blind Side, which was supposedly an inspiring true story; when in fact the “true story” on which it was based proved to be largely fiction and with the people it supposedly depicted now decrying it for its inaccuracies. And so on and so on and so on. The films the posting set right made a long list – but of course it was a relatively very limited list when you realise that the great majority of films “based on a true story” do not really respect the true story.

I have heard people suggest that nobody should be upset about this. After all, isn’t the purpose of films to entertain rather than give history lessons? At least, that’s what the producers of films say. But I have a problem with this concept. In an age when films, TV shows and series etc, are the main form of entertainment, many people take the “based on a true story” to be what it claims to be. And it is particularly true of younger people who, in general, do not read serious literature and certainly do not read serious history books. For this cohort, “history” means what the films have told them. “It must be true because I saw it in the movie.”

I’m aware that inaccurate dramatized versions of history are no new thing. I reach back to Aeschylus, over two-and-a-half thousand years ago, writing his play The Persians, depicting the Persian emperor and his court going crazy with fear and sorrow as they hear of a great Greek victory. And how did Aeschylus know what the Persians said in their court? Answer: he didn’t. He made it up - hence dramatized fiction presented as fact. Or I consider Bill Shakespeare’s “history” plays, with the Tudor propaganda version of Richard III and the very obvious historical mistakes in the two Henry IV plays. No creditable historian would now take Shakespeare’s version of history as fully factual, great plays though they are. The simple fact is that even the most accurate dramatizations of history have to simplify, compress and elide events, and depict historical characters in a way that can be relatable to the audience – heroes, villains, victims etc. for drama always requires antagonism and conflict. This is true even of a generally accurate film like the recent Oppenheimer. And don’t get me started on historical novels.

I am not so naïve as to imagine that all history books, even ones by illustrious scholars, are necessarily always accurate. But the fact remains that the dominant form of entertainment now is movies and television, which are less likely to be true to the facts of history even than a flawed history book. And always remember that when a film announces itself as “based on the true story”, what it really means is “very loosely connected to a true story with much fiction stirred in.”